Is space cold in the solar system?

Question

They say space is cold. I've heard say that it is actually 0 degrees kelvin in the absence of a star. So we have the sun radiating heat, but they say space is cold. So two questions, if it is cold in space, even around the earth, then what causes the heat of the sun to materialise once inside the atmosphere? And if space is cold, how close could we get to the sun without feeling it's effect?

Answer 1

look at it this way... if you hold your hand close to a lightbulb, do you feel the heat? if you hold your hand farther away... you feel less heat.

there is a thing called 'blackbody' temperature, its sorta like your hand in space feeling the temp of the Sun. (actually, your hand would be cooler, cause its not perfect black).

I don't remember the numbers, but at the distance of the Earth, the 'blackbody' temp is something like 30 degrees F or so...

Space is neither hot nor cold... you need a medium to show its average kinetic energy, but an object in space exposed to the Sun would acheive an interesting temperature, depending on how much light it reflects.

(yes, you would get warmer closer to the Sun)

Answer 2

Sun's Radiations cause the earth's surface & air in the atmosphere around to heat up. That is why we feel warm due to atmosphere and earth gaining the heat.

The green house gases (like CO2, Ozone etc) in the atmosphere do not allow this heat to escape, we feel warm within the atmosphere. (more the green house gases, more heat thereby increasing the temperature, the green house gases are causing Global Warming).

However, in space, there is no atmosphere, there is virtually nothing to hold the heat of radiations from the sun, that is why, it is very cold in the atmosphre.

If the earth doesnot have atmosphere then during day, we will experience much cold nights. Due to same reasons, at moon, the nights are very cold.

I have no confirm answer for your 2nd question.

Answer 3

The Sun's heat is transmitted through space as Infrared RADIATION .. when this hits the earths atmosphere it warms up the gas molecules ..

NB. Space is not that cold .. background temp. is at least 3 Kelvin (Big bang) and most places will receive at least some star light (i.e. some IR radiation)

Answer 4

Space is not cold if you are closely exposed to the radiation of the sun. For example, it is +200 degrees if the moon is in sunlight, but -200 degrees if in the dark. The suns radiation gets converted to heat when ever in light.

Answer 5

Actually, the average temperature in space is about 3 Kelvin. Yes, it is very cold in the solar system if you're not on a planet with sufficient atmosphere to hold the temperature.
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Answer 6

Depends on your distance from the sun, and whether you're on a planet that has an atmosphere.

The earth would be really cold if it didn't have an atmosphere, with a certain amount of greenhouse effect.

Answer 7

heat from the sun travels as energy, and is converted into heat energy when it interacts with the particles in our atmosphere. There are very little particles floating around in space, so little to carry the energy as heat energy, rather than light energy, so space is cold.

Answer 8

Yes!

Answer 9

Yes it is